Below are some photos that Toby is sharing with us of her home. Makes me want to book a trip!!!
Hanalei View
Toby(left) and a fan.
Kee Beach
Hawaiian Night Sky
Hawaii:when you grow up in a place like this, it does something to you.
It kind of ruins everywhere else.And that can be difficult, because even after you try to find a way to live in a place people visit on vacation, and few but millionaires own homes, life is challenging.
I grew up on Kaua`i and started life as a young married, I worked in hotels and restaurants, and cleaned houses for Charo, Bette Midler, Billie Jean King and Guns’ n Roses. (Yeah, they really did throw some crazy parties, as least back in the eighties. It wasn’t fun being the maid.) My husband and I had to leave Hawaii for college, to scrape our way into middle class by education—only to find there aren’t jobs here on Kaua`i when we tried to return.
So we settled on Maui. What a hardship, right? But many people have to work multiple jobs to afford the cost of living here, and that is still the case with me—even though my books are selling well, I still work at my practice as a therapist and my husband has two jobs!
We love Hawaii, though, and I write about it because it’s a place with a lot of unique history, a gorgeous setting, and a multicultural people from all over the world who have made Hawaii one of the most diverse states in the US. I plan to write about it forever!
Have you lived in an “exotic” location or gone somewhere on vacation and discovered you fell in love with it? What were the joys and challenges of that decision? Add a comment and enter to win a free ebook of my newest title, Shattered Palms!
Blurb:
Maui is lush mountains, cloud forest and exquisite birdsong—but for Detective Lei Texeira, arrows break that peace.
Someone is stalking poachers that are capturing Maui’s rarest birds, and Lei pursues the case with her usual leap-first, look-later style—but will she be able to catch a killer, save the birds, and still make it to her own wedding? Shattered Palms is a roller coaster ride from the top of Haleakala to the beach and back again, with extinction at stake.
“Toby Neal creates a captivating balance of the beauty of the islands contrasted with the ugliness of murder, and complicated by the trials of Lei’s personal life. A must-read for Neal fans.” Thomas K. Matthews, author of Rejection.
Twitter: @tobywneal
website: http://www.tobyneal.net/
